


Dreamcatcher

by mrs_d



Category: due South
Genre: "Eclipse", Episode Related, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4117453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_d/pseuds/mrs_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See, my job includes a lot of things that give people nightmares: dead bodies, gun fights, bad guys. But driving a burning car into the lake that Fraser calls the lake they call Michigan, then getting shot by some nutso torch with a thing for privacy? Yeah, hello crazy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreamcatcher

I used to have some pretty fucked up dreams.

There’d be the standard I’m-late-for-an-appointment, I-can’t-find-the-car-keys, I-can’t-get-through-on-the-phone, I-can’t-get-the-car-to-start-so-I’m-running-down-the-street dreams, where I’d wake up with my heart busting out of my chest and breathing like I’d actually run a mile, and it’d take me a while to figure out where I was and how to breathe properly again.

Then there’d be the work dreams: old cases, dead faces, blood on the sidewalk. Beth Botrelle made more than a few appearances over the years, and every time she did I’d wake up sad and sick to my stomach, not out of breath, but heavy, like my arms and legs couldn’t figure out what to do with all that sad and sick.

But the worst ones by a million were the ones where somebody I know — or knew, like Paul Wasylenchuk that I played ball with at South Street, or Joe Peterson from the 1-9 — somebody gets whacked or has an accident or something, and I’m just standing there like a fucking statue. No gun, no badge, no training, no first aid, no nothing. Just Stanley on the sidewalk, watching other cops set up a crime scene around pieces of Stella, and somehow it’s always my fault, like I could’ve stopped it if I’d known, but I’m always too late, too slow, too surprised, too stupid. All the while Pauly’s grey eyes are staring up at me through what’s left of his head.

Told you they were fucked up.

These ones, I always woke up crying and, man, I hate crying. With the fluids and the gasping for air, it’s like drowning, and I can’t stop it because I don’t know how to breathe underwater.

More I had these dreams — and they picked up after the divorce — the more I’d work; the less I’d sleep, the more coffee I’d have till I snapped at Joe Peterson, punched him in his pretty boy face, and the Lieu at the 1-9’s giving me chin music about anger management classes.

Next thing you know, Welsh is calling me. Good guy, Welsh, knew him at the 3-1 when I first got my shield. He calls me up, asks if I’d replace Vecchio for him. New precinct, new life, new partner, he says. Ditch the past, he says. Think about it. I thought about it, and said what the hell. Maybe a change of scenery, change of life’d do me good, let me get some fucking sleep.

Yeah, right.

See, my job includes a lot of things that give people nightmares: dead bodies, gun fights, bad guys. But driving a burning car into the lake that Fraser calls the lake they call Michigan, then getting shot by some nutso torch with a thing for privacy? Yeah, hello crazy.

First day with Vecchio’s partner, I didn’t want to go home. Overwork gave me some peace sometimes. If I stayed at my desk till even my bones felt exhausted, sometimes I could sleep without dreaming. Sometimes.

Then out of the blue the Mountie’s there, rocking brown leather and jeans as well as he does red wool and pumpkin pants, and it’s “Hey, Ray? Would you like to get something to eat with me?” and okay, I’m hungry and anything’s better than what they got in the canteen.

Maybe he noticed the coffee, the sugar (hard to hide that when they only give you a half dozen tiny yellow packets and you’ve got to ask the waitress for more). Maybe I just looked real tired, or maybe he’s got instincts as good as mine somewhere under all that polite logic. But either way the next time I see him he’s got this little Frisbee thing with beads and apparently a real eagle feather — which I guess is supposed to impress me? — and he tells me “It’s a dream catcher, I made it myself, you hang it in your window, it tangles up bad dreams.”

Except here’s the funny part. I take it, okay, because it’s the polite thing to do when a Mountie gives you a handmade arts and crafts project as a birthday present when it’s not your birthday. And when I get it home, I look it over and yeah, it’s nice, the beads are pretty but not girly, and, yeah, okay, the super rare eagle feather's kind of impressive after all. So I think, okay, I’ll hang it in my living room, that way if Fraser ever comes over for a beer or breaks into my apartment again he’ll see that I’m enjoying his not-birthday birthday present. And then at the last minute I think about what he said about it tangling up bad dreams, so I take it down again and put it in my bedroom window. He’ll never see it here (unless— no, don’t go there, he’ll never see it), but here’s where I sleep, so if it’s going to catch a bad dream it’ll be here, right?

Maybe I’ve been hanging out with the Mountie too long because this is starting to sound logical.

And then I decided not to have another cup of coffee, not to put on the late night TV crap that keeps me from dreaming till 1 in the morning. No, instead I got ready for bed — real pyjamas and teeth brushing, folks! — and damned if I didn’t have the best sleep of my life.


End file.
